“I used to line up my baby dolls in chairs and read and sing to them,” said director of the Office of School Readiness Mary Accor. “I was six years old and teaching already.”

Now after 33 years of working in schools, Accor is retiring from Cleveland County Schools.

“As I’ve moved up the ladder from teaching to administration to Central Office, I have never forgotten that I am a teacher,” she said. “I will always be a teacher.”

After graduating from high school in 1975, Accor got her degree at Livingstone College in Salisbury. Though she was offered jobs in Salisbury, Accor wanted to return home to Cleveland County.

“I had four jobs waiting on me when I graduated, some were in Salisbury,” she said. “But I wanted to return to Kings Mountain. I’m sort of like Dorothy, ‘there’s no place like home.’”

In her first teaching job as a language arts teacher at Central High School in Kings Mountain, Accor wanted to reach out to students who needed extra attention. Accor’s desire to help those students got her selected to be the principal of Cleveland County’s first alternative school, Parker School.

“I was told about the school in August and it was going to be opened in October. It was one of the most challenging moments in my career, but saw it as an opportunity to help students,” she said. “I helped get it off the ground and every morning I told students, ‘Good morning, I love you.'"

Letting students know they are loved is a way to ensure their success, Accor said.

“Kids don’t care about how much you know, they want to know how much you care,” she said. “Some people say orange juice energizes children in the morning, I say it’s love.”

After leaving the Parker School, Accor became the principal at Bethware Elementary School.

“Bethware was the first place I found a community,” she said. “Ninty-two percent of the parents were involved and working to help children achieve their goals.”

After nine years at Bethware, Accor moved to work at the Kings Mountain Central Office as Human Resources for Recruitment, recruiting teachers to the area. After the merger of Kings Mountain and Cleveland County Schools, Accor became the director for the Office of School Readiness for Cleveland County Schools.

Now, in her retirement, Accor is looking forward to being a “Meme” to her new grandbaby.

“It’s time to start a new chapter,” she said. “I’m at the end of one race and now it’s time to wait and see what’s behind door number three.”

Reach Jessica Pickens at 704-669-3332 or jpickens@shelbystar.com . Follow on Twitter at @StarJPickens.